


The Arrangement

by madame_faust



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Relationship of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24798580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: Christine and the Comte de Chagny have one, very important thing in common: they both loved and lost Raoul.(A Christine/Philippe fic for littlelonghairedoutlaws's RarePairs Fic Contest! It is HEAVY on the angst, mind the tags.)
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Comte Philippe de Chagny, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Comments: 26
Kudos: 27





	The Arrangement

He does not love her. She certainly does not love him. But they both loved Raoul. And that was enough.

They did not touch, at first. There was no hint that love of any variety would be part of their arrangement. Not since the girl looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, one slim, black-gloved hand clutched at the throat of her gown as though to hold it fast or, trembling, undo the first jet button. Philippe stiffened at the sight; she might have perceived appalled disgust in his eyes, in the tightness of his mouth for she dropped her hand demurely and lowered her eyes. No. Love would not be part of their arrangement.

She was not _his_ wife. Had never been _his_ wife. And yet she wore mourning for eighteen months. She had been mourning her foster-mother for six months when the newspapers posted the notice that the Arctic expedition had failed. All hands were presumed lost. 

Once, Philippe feared an elopement. Thought it would ruin dear Raoul. But he was beyond that now. Beyond ruin and inheritance and the family name. There was nothing to inter. Nothing but a name dutifully carved into stone in a lonely family crypt.

And her. The girl. The not-widow. With her doleful eyes and resigned expression.

Philippe put her off. He was good at that. Raoul wore his heart on his sleeve, dear boy (dear, _dear_ boy). He laughed, smiled, and wept openly. Philippe did not - could not? Be the same. The girl - Mademoiselle Daaé, he addressed her stiffly - might have thought him cruel. The great obstacle to her future security and happiness.

More fool her. Both of them. For the sea had taken all their hopes and dreams of the future and sealed them in an icy coffin. 

Well, if neither of them could be happy, Philippe saw to it that she was, at least, secure. She continued on at the Palais Garnier, never a diva, but tolerably talented in trouser roles. He provided her with the money to keep up the little apartment she had shared with her guardian. To retain the maid to do some little bit of cooking or cleaning. She wanted nothing more - he doubted she would have taken so much from him at all, but occasional trouser roles and regular appearances in the choral ensemble did not pay. 

It was a year into their arrangement that she approached him in the dancers' lounge. He had no favorite now; not when La Sorelli realized that he would never make an honest woman of her and found a man who would. She was wiser than Mademoiselle Daaé who hung her hopes upon a second son with eyes as blue and guileless as the summer sky. (Why the _Navy_? Why the _sea_? When he was a child of the air and wind?) 

In the end, they were lonely. They had both lost the one who they loved more than anything in the world. Both orphans, he supposed. The word felt absurd, even obscene; ah, yes, an orphan Comte of forty-five years. Mademoiselle Daaé might have a greater claim to the title; she was twenty-three. Young enough to be his daughter. 

But she was no one's daughter. Neither of them were anyone's child anymore. And when she approached him, her eyes were clear, her gaze steady. She did not clutch at her neck with trembling hands. She reached out a white-gloved hand to shake his. Philippe kissed it instead. And tucked her covered fingers into the crook of his arm. 

That night, and many nights to follow, they fell together. Leaned upon one another, it might better be said. They did not speak much and when they did it was only of him. Their darling boy. How they had loved him.

Philippe with his heart of stone and eyes of sapphire, a man of worldly knowledge and stern affect wept before her once; when he realized how she'd loved him. The wrongs he'd done her. He tried to apologize. If he had known. If he had understood. That she was not a common chorus girl with dreams of a title before her name and servants under her thumb. There would be no coy flirtations meant to ensnare, no tricks or seductions meant to trap. He begged her forgiveness and she wept too; but not for him.

"Don't ask me that," she begged, sheets drawn over her chest, hair falling in waves before her face. "Please. Never ask me that again."

He never did, able to do that kindness for her, at least. She was a good girl, was Mademoiselle Daaé; of course it would pain her that she could not find it in herself to forgive him. Philippe could not - would not - forgive himself. 

A year passed. Then two. It was in the winter that she made a request of him: that he would let a little cottage for her in Brittany to make private use of for a few months. Additionally, she wanted an assurance that her position at the Opéra would remain when returned.

Philippe took care of the little particulars. The explanations to the management that Mademoiselle Daaé was fatigued; overworked and exhausted. A serious complaint, but one that would only remove her from the stage for a little while. Knowing eyebrows were raised, but propriety and privacy was respected; she was not the first young woman in the Opéra's employ to need some time away from Paris to seek treatment for exhaustion, or a nervous complaint, or to nurse an elderly maiden aunt. 

Philippe asked her why Brittany; why not Paris where he could provide the best care, the best doctors?

Because, she said firmly, packing her truck with her back turned to him; she wanted the baby baptized in the church where her father had been buried. And, she added, worrying her lip with her teeth, her eyes sad and worried as they had been that night two years ago when they stood in her little flat working out their arrangement. She had one more request to make of him.

He told her to name it; he could not - would not - offer her a title. Nor respectability. But anything else, anything material, she need only name and it was hers.

"If it's a boy," she asked, her voice scarcely above a whisper. "I want him to be called Raoul."

Philippe's heart was heavy, but his chest was light. This too he could give her. 

"Yes," he nodded, curtly. "Of course."

A small smile graced her lips for the first time in months. "Thank you."

He did not deserve her thanks, just as he did not deserve her forgiveness, but the former she gave more readily. When she returned to Paris, half a year later, having 'adopted' a little orphan boy she called Raoul, the management merely congratulated her. 

No congratulations were due Philippe. His visits to the little flat became less frequent, though the money he sent increased; now he paid for a nurse to mind the child while his mother performed. He was a fine little boy, stocky of build, with white-blonde hair and dark blue eyes. Mademoiselle Daaé said, with a catch in her voice and a glimmer of water in her eyes, that he took after her father.

The boy, Raoul, was to have no father. Merely a man - a Monsieur, who visited his mother occasionally and would acknowledge him with a stiff pat upon his head and a stiffer smile upon his lips. 

The first time he lingered in the child's company, he was already five years of age; nearly six. The child wanted to make a model: a ship in a bottle. But he was having trouble and his mother's efforts yielded no better result.

Philippe hesitated, unsure whether it was his place. But he offered his assistance. Sat down uneasily at the kitchen table. And uncorked the bottle of glue, setting to work with a steady hand. 

Mademoiselle Daaé took her leave abruptly. With a hand over her mouth she felt, but not quickly enough; Philippe could hear her sobs behind the door. 

The boy Raoul did not notice, so intent was he upon his work. His little brow was furrowed, his pink tongue peeking out between his lips. As though he felt the weight of Philippe's stare upon him, he looked up and smiled at him reflexively. His was a quick smile, a ready smile. A heart-on-his-sleeve smile. 

A smile Philippe could not return. He brought his hand to his mouth and ground his teeth against his knuckles to shore up against feeling anything; happiness, or sorrow, or miserable guilt. Once he was composed, he picked up the glue again and continued silently and efficiently constructing the ship, which would sail forever under its dome of glass. 

_God, forgive me_ , he prayed, hoping the Divine would extend mercy where Mademoiselle Daaé could not. And, looking down at the little blonde head, again intent on his task, prayed again, _Raoul, forgive me._


End file.
